Madonna’s Iconic Fluevog Platform—The Ultimate Club Shoe—Is Back and Better Than Ever

The year was 1990 and Madonna—then 32, bleached blonde, and at the height of her fame—was getting dressed to attend the Dick Tracy premiere. She chose a velvet baby doll slip, gold crucifix pendant, a row of daisies stuck in her hair, and towering black platforms with an extravagant Baroque heel: the Fluevog Munster, which Canadian shoe designer John Fluevog had tucked in a box and sent off to the star on a whim. “Do you really like them?” she asked, smiling coyly down at the outsize shoes. The playful response—“What do you think People magazine’s going to say?”—was immortalized in her documentary film Truth or Dare and made the Munster an icon. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of his cult creation, Fluevog will reissue the shape next month in its original pink and black suede and a new silver glitter version.

The timing could not be better, given the ongoing yen for stacked shoes: Buffalo recently rereleased its thick-soled rave sneaker, while iterations appeared at shows like Balenciaga (famously, in Croc form) and Sies Marjan for Spring 2018. This Vogue editor stands 5-foot-2 and has a particular weakness for platforms—the higher, the better. Perhaps needless to say, the extra inches stoke confidence, improve posture, elongate the body line. Platforms may appear impossible to walk in, but are in fact incredibly comfortable due to the gentle slope of the sole; the best of the lot have a light foam sole or other featherweight base, which invokes the sensation of gliding on air. What sets the Munster apart, however, is its unusual Art Deco structure: a silver Pilgrim buckle and that curved heel, which quickly draws the eye.

Fluevog recalls dreaming up the exaggerated shape in a flight of fancy, craving something different from the thick crepe-bottom shoes and super-pointed punk flats he was selling then. “The shape so haunted me, I made it out of plaster of paris and hung this dripping blob on a coat hanger on my basement,” he says. Next Fluevog entreated an old “hippie friend” and shoemaker to create the first prototype, which he bundled and took to a small factory in England to begin production. The first splash came from Lady Miss Kier, Deee-Lite front woman and ’90s nightlife icon, who wore a tangerine-color pair on the cover of the album World Clique with yellow psychedelic print leggings and a hot pink turtleneck. “They worked for the ’90s club scene that was happening,” he says. “The ultimate disco platform.”

“At first glance, it’s an excessive ‘look at me’ party shoe,” Fluevog goes on, noting the attention they drew in the queues outside venues. But far more important to him and his devoted clientele was the comfort: Despite the intimidating four-inch heel, the stable base meant a shockingly comfortable sole. “It can be an easy eight-hours-a-day shoe,” he says (a fact this writer can personally attest to). Of course, the dramatic design is not for everyone; in the ’90s, Fluevog found them slow to catch on. “I never sold them that well in the Vancouver market, but I did not care,” Fluevog says. “They were different.” Now, everyone wants to be different. Couple that with real comfort? What could be better?